


Of A Coastal Town (That You Once Knew)

by Siria



Series: After the Other [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-10
Updated: 2007-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rodney was small, day trips down to the sea were a regular thing in the lazy warmth of July; his father driving with shirt sleeves rolled up, his mother humming along with the radio, Rodney and Jeannie crammed into the back with the picnic basket, the buckets and spades, the scratchy plaid blankets for sitting on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of A Coastal Town (That You Once Knew)

**Author's Note:**

> Commas corrected by Cate.

When Rodney was small, day trips down to the sea were a regular thing in the lazy warmth of July; his father driving with shirt sleeves rolled up, his mother humming along with the radio, Rodney and Jeannie crammed into the back with the picnic basket, the buckets and spades, the scratchy plaid blankets for sitting on. He always remembers how noisy it was; how hot, even in shorts and sandals; how frustrated he was with his parents, who wouldn't let him read for fear of car sickness, a frustration which always manifested in him kicking the back of his father's seat; how blue the sky seemed, how open.

It's been a dismal summer so far this year, St Swithin's promise of forty days' rain delivered in full and then some; and he has no parents now to usher him from the house and into the backseat of his father's Ford Cortina, no Jeannie to pinch him on the arm when he asks why they can't just go to the library instead of wasting the day outside. He has John, though, John who for some years now has shared with him all that a small cottage on the western coast can hold; he stands in the back garden, squints up at a sky that's finally brightening to blue with ten days to go before the start of term, and thinks maybe he'll suggest that they go out for the day.

They get on a DART at Pearse Street, carriage half-empty thanks to the lull in commuters between early morning and midday. Dublin rattles and rolls away behind them as they travel south; John leans against the window and Rodney leans against John, both of them looking out and away towards the glimpses of sea and open sky that are coming quicker and quicker. Rodney feels strangely reluctant to speak this morning, is unusually quiet, an end-of-summer lethargy that John seems to feel too; he's made no matter of the fact that Rodney fidgeted his way through breakfast, or decided that today was the perfect day for a trip down to Bray, no matter all the paperwork they both need to get through in advance of the coming year. Just shrugged, and smiled, and pulled on his jacket and said "sure"; sits next to him now, one of his hands covering Rodney's where they rest on the ugly green-brown of the seat, and his thumb strokes soft against Rodney's palm.

Of course, once they get there, Rodney has no idea what to do or where to go. It's been years since he came here last—trips like this one shunned when he was thirteen and angry, impossible when he was still in the States, not thought of much lately—and the town's grown since then, changed beyond the bounds of his memory, just like every place within easy driving distance of Dublin. Not that it matters much, the way the streets don't quite lead where he remembers: the promenade's still there, an easy mile from the harbour and its cluster of hissing swans, all the way down to the slope and slant of Bray Head.

Rodney remembers the way there, and he wonders to himself if this is what he brought John here to see, what he wants to show him—not the beach, or the little shops selling the strangest of souvenirs, or the lights and the neon of the amusements—but this walk they can take together, stride matching easy stride.

The bustle that Rodney remembers from his childhood is long gone, vanished in the face of cheap flights to the Costas and the firm promise of cloudless skies; despite the good weather, there isn't even much more than a handful of day-trippers from the city now that school's started back. They can walk in silence if they wish, talk if they want without anyone to overhear: about Rodney's progress in finding tutorial assistants for the new term who aren't completely incompetent, or the ongoing argument about the flight worthiness of the X-Wing in comparison to the Y-Wing fighter; they can point to a sudden, startled flight of seagulls, or to the place where Rodney and Jeannie had competed as children to see who could make the most intricate sand castle.

By the time they turn back, it's after one, and Rodney's stomach is grumbling loud enough that he doesn't object when John stops to buy them both bags of chips from a greasy little hole-in-the-wall place—the kind of place Rodney normally decries for selling their food with a healthy dose of e-coli on the side. He accepts the brown paper bag John hands him gratefully, sits down on a nearby bench and digs in; after the first couple, he's forced to admit that they're really good, the taste of salt and vinegar hot against tongue and teeth.

He's finished the bag, right down to the saltiest little scraps that always seem to live at the bottom, and has licked his fingers clean of salt before he surprises himself by speaking. He tells John about the e-mails from Radek, the formal letters on crisp, headed stationery—the offers that he's received since he started publishing again in earnest, the journal articles and the monographs—the ones that always bear the inscription "with thanks to J.S."—that have earned him offers of his own departments, his own labs, funding, as many or as few grad students to supervise as he could ever want, offers that would bring him back to the States, to clapboard houses and the snap and drawl of New England accents.

John is quiet next to him for too long once he stops talking; long enough for Rodney to realise, and turn to look at John's profile, stark against the blue sky. He rolls his eyes and nudges John in the side with an elbow and says "Oh my god, you didn't think I'd actually—you eejit, I'm not _accepting_ any of them!"

John unfolds a little next to him, the braced line of his back losing a little of its tension; but Rodney can see something there if he looks closely enough, and the realisation stings as much as it angers. "You thought I was bringing you all the way out here to, to—"

"Radek said something about it in an e-mail," John shrugs. "You didn't say anything about it to me, and you've been kind of quiet lately.

Rodney sags back against the bench. "I am surrounded by morons," he says. "Radek wants me to go back to the States when it is very obvious that I don't want to go back, you think that I would be idiot enough to leave you and Jeannie's gone all touchy-feely, _this would be so much easier if you just told him about it, Mer_."

"Actually," John says, "this would have been a lot easier if you'd just—"

"Shut up," Rodney says firmly; then more quietly, "I'm not going. I wouldn't—I couldn't. And I was going to tell you. It was just that it was tempting, a little, and nice to think that if I _did_—want to, I mean—that I could go back to it. That they'd want me to go back, you know. Not just another burnt-out child prodigy, De Broglie Prize at seventeen and nothing since. And I didn't want to go, but the thoughts of being _able_ to go back were so.... and I think—I think I wanted to come out here today because this is a place I wanted to be able to come back to, too; I was happy here, even with... and, well. I wanted to have this memory in my head, too. Being able to come back here with you."

John stands up without saying anything, takes the empty chip bag from Rodney's hand, crumples it up with his own, and walks over to drop them in the nearest bin. For a moment, Rodney thinks that he's going to keep going, keep walking—but then John turns back, sits down next to him, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

"It made sense in my head?" Rodney says lamely; his hands rest loose and painfully empty in his lap.

"For a smart guy," John says finally, his voice sounding a little muffled, "you really are kind of stupid."

"So it's been said," Rodney sighs. "Mostly by you and Jeannie, admittedly, but—I'm sorry. For worrying you." The words come out more tentatively than he would have liked, so he reaches out gently with one hand to stroke the back of John's neck, at the strip of tan skin that's visible between the collar of his t-shirt and the hair that's going to need a cut shortly.

John shifts into his touch almost imperceptibly and hums a little, low in the back of his throat; Rodney can feel the vibrations of the sound through the palm of his hand and knows it for forgiveness, of a kind. He swallows hard against a sudden lump in his throat because this—this is what John does to him every time. Makes him want to push aside his pride and his competitiveness and all of his fears of being forgotten and being left aside—makes him want to be better. "I promise not to drag you along on any other freak-out-induced day trips to crappy seaside towns in future?"

John shifts to look at him, and Rodney has to fight against the urge to school his features into some suitably-serious expression, because when John _looks_ at him like that, he—but then John grins, a smile on his face like the sun breaking out over clear waters. He sits up and presses his mouth to Rodney's, sitting just as they are on a bench covered in peeling paint, sitting by the sea on a blustery September afternoon; and Rodney presses closer, moves into John's warmth and holds on, just like he did the first time, just like he's done every time since.

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/sheafrotherdon/pic/0007dxy8/)   
_View north towards the town from Bray Head_


End file.
